From October 26 to November 1, thousands of people across Mexico City will come together for Mexico Tech Week. At Clara, we’re opening our doors from October 26 to 31 to be part of it.
One of the things I’ve always valued about engineering is how much of it happens outside the code itself. The conversations with other builders, the ideas you pick up from someone working on a completely different problem, or the afternoon where you try something just to see if it works.
So this year, we wanted Clara’s participation in Mexico Tech Week to create more room for exactly that.
We’ll host communities from across the local tech ecosystem, put builders in a room for a day to see what AI can do for Mexico, and close the week with something slightly less serious: a 2v2 Age of Empires tournament.
Here’s what we’re working on.
Giving tech communities a home for the week
We’re starting Mexico Tech Week with Casa de las Comunidades, running from Monday through Thursday.
The idea is simple: rather than creating another event centered around a company, we want to give the communities that already bring developers together throughout the year a space of their own.
We’ve opened our office for tech communities to host their own sessions during the week, whether that means a meetup, workshop, technical discussion, or whatever format makes the most sense for their members.
We’ve already started conversations with communities across Python, Java, security, and other areas of the ecosystem, and we’re continuing to bring more groups into the program.
What I like most about this format is that we don’t get to decide exactly what the week looks like. The communities do.
Learn more about Casa de las Comunidades →
A full day to build
On Friday, October 30, the office shifts from conversations to building.
As part of Mexico Tech Week, we’re hosting AI Hackathon para México at Clara, bringing together engineers, designers, entrepreneurs, and creators to explore one big question: What can AI do for Mexico?
From making public services easier to access to unlocking opportunities in education, employment, and entrepreneurship, the challenge is to build something that creates real public value for people in Mexico.
The possibilities are wide open, with one important requirement: every project must use an official Mexican public data source, service, or government system to build a working AI-powered prototype.
From 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, teams will have the opportunity to experiment, build, change direction, break things, and try again before presenting what they’ve created.
One day, one challenge, and a chance to build something that makes a difference. 🇲🇽
For more details on judging criteria, mentors, judges, and prizes, check out our landing page.
And then, Age of Empires ⚔️
After four days of communities and one full day of building, Saturday will look a little different. On October 31, we’re bringing back one of our favorite Mexico Tech Week traditions: Clara’s annual Age of Empires II tournament.
For the third year, we’re turning our Mexico City office into a battlefield, and this time, we’re taking things up a notch with a 2v2 format.
There’s no grand engineering thesis behind this one. We like Age of Empires, a lot of people in tech like Age of Empires, and after a week of conversations, ideas, and building, gathering everyone for a little friendly competition feels like the perfect way to wrap things up.
The idea is camaraderie rather than professional competition. Teams will battle it out, meet people from across the tech ecosystem, and, inevitably, argue about civilizations, build orders, and who’s been leaving their villagers idle.
We’re also preparing a few things beyond the matches themselves, including commemorative shirts and a few surprises for those who take their Age of Empires traditions particularly seriously.
The tournament is back. Now all you need is your duo.
Register for Age of Empires × Clara →
Why we’re doing this
Clara is building the financial infrastructure companies in Latin America run on, and we’re unapologetically AI-first: in what we ship to clients, in how we build it, and in the pace we’ve hit as a result, which is the fastest this team has ever moved. Weeks like this one are how we stay sharp enough to keep it up.
Some of the most valuable exchanges happen outside the work you’re supposed to be doing. Someone shows you how they solved a problem differently. You test an idea that sounded slightly ridiculous a few hours earlier. You meet someone working on something completely unrelated and leave with a new way of thinking about your own work.
For six days, our office will move between community meetups, technical conversations, AI experiments, demos, and, yes, a LAN tournament. The formats are very different, but the idea behind them is the same: give builders a place to meet other builders, exchange what they know, and make things together.
If you’re in Mexico City for Mexico Tech Week, I hope you’ll stop by Clara.
And if you like the idea of working with a team that makes room for this kind of curiosity, we’re hiring. See open roles →
